“In the course of the 11 years of the family genetics project, many parents whose children had superior or very superior verbal reasoning shared with the research team how difficult it was to convince educators that their child had a learning disability. Frequently they reported being told that their child was bright and the problem […]

The road to advocacy has many twists and turns so if your student has moderate to severe difficulties with processing speed, be prepared to be nimble and responsive to challenges that arise. In our previous newsletter, we mentioned some of the advocacy that Laura and her son John took on his path as a 2E […]

For many, the most frustrating aspect of dyslexia is writing. Writing gets better over time, but it may remain effortful and some will find non-verbal outlets for expression such as drawing, film, building physical objects or managing teams more expressive. Because dyslexic thinkers often have strong associational minds and personal memories, writing difficulties are more likely […]

A gifted dyslexic high school student from the East Coast told me about a school that he was heading out to join in the Silicon Valley instead of college. He was incredibly bright and resourceful, and had been bringing in pretty good income from setting up his own server for games. Like many bright […]

Dean Kamen is one of the world’s most prolific inventors with over 440 patents to his name – including the Segway, the Luke Arm (robotic prosthesis), a programmable insulin pump and portable water purifier for Third World Countries. He also created the FIRST LEGO league to encourage young people to build and engineer, and he […]

The last decade has seen a great advance in the biological understanding of dyscalculia, or math disability. The DSM V groups a specific learning disorder in math (315.1) under Specific Learning Disability along with impairment in reading (315.000) and impairment in written expression (315.2). The NIH defines dyscalculia as a condition contributes to “difficulty understanding arithmetic […]

QUESTION: Is it Possible to Have Both Dyslexia and Autism? The short answer is yes, but it’s likely not very common and in general many of the features of dyslexia and autism are opposite. By strict criteria, low IQ and autism are excluded from the diagnosis of dyslexia. However, it is not difficult to speculate […]